Word of the day – ig

When I’m singing or playing the tin whistle or other wind instruments I often get hiccoughs, and the other day I was trying to explain this to a Welsh friend in Welsh, but didn’t know the Welsh word for hiccup. So I looked it up.

The English word hiccough (also spelt hiccup) is thought to be an imitation of the sound of hiccoughs, and the Welsh word ig probably is as well.

And in American Sign Language, the flat hand (fingers together, bent at the base), with the index finger side in continuous contact with the Adam’s Apple, makes quick upward movements as a result of short, sudden rotations of the forearm.

Yenlit – snag in Irish means gasp, sob, hiccough or lull, but I think the snag in snag darach and snag breac (magpie), and perhaps snagcheol (jazz), is a different snag.

According to McBain’s Etymological Dictionary, the snag in snag darach comes from snoigh, to carve, wear down, chip, while snag in Scottish Gaelic means ‘a little audible knock’ and is related to the Irish snag, hiccough.

snagaireachd in Scottish Gaelic means ‘cutting or hacking wood with a knife’ and comes from a dialect English word, snagger, a tool for snagging or cutting off snags (branches, knots, etc).

Ahh, Lau mentioned the Finnish word “nikka” earlier. I have never heard it used, but now I realized that the corresponding verb comes from that form: nikotella ‘to hiccough’. Although I think more common is to say “minulla on hikka” (I have the hiccough).

Of course any Gilbert and Sullivan fan should know that shakkuri means hiccup in Japanese. (Chorus near the end of act 1 of The Mikado, trying to drown out a crucial revelation: O ni! bikkuri shakkuri to!, intended to mean “Oh no! Surprise and a hiccup!”)

I take a deep breath and let it out very, very slowly. Usually this takes two or three tries.

I always expected the ‘scare’ tactic to be a myth, but some months ago I yelled ‘BOO!’ unexpectedly at a friend with a hiccough, and it really helped.
What’s the correct English expression, by the way: I have a hiccough? I have hiccoughs? I have the hiccough? The latter version is how we say it in Dutch (Ik heb de hik), where the definite article makes ‘hik’ a collective “illness” noun, as in ‘Ik heb de griep’ ‘I have the flu’.

Of course any Gilbert and Sullivan fan should know that shakkuri means hiccup in Japanese. (Chorus near the end of act 1 of The Mikado, trying to drown out a crucial revelation: O ni! bikkuri shakkuri to!, intended to mean “Oh no! Surprise and a hiccup!”)